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Well I like them – and so does the Guardian: 5* review this morning to be found here: http://arts.guardian.co.uk/reviews/story/0,,1762746,00.html
I like both of them. At present the expanded Live album is getting more playing time in my front room but that’s a personal taste.
The particular pleasures of the Boxed set for me are the unreleased outtakes and demos and the unorchestrated Last Will and Testament. The latter is a gem; the previously unreleased songs are a bit of a mixed bag I think. I really like "Famous People" and added it to what I laughingly call my repetoire within ten minutes of hearing it! I also like Vicar’s Missus and Family Grave. On the other hand I know that some people are really taken by other songs which haven’t really grabbed me: time will tell.
I already had a recording of a version of Thomas Haverley which Jake performed on The Camera and The Song for the BBC in, I think, 1973. I had hoped that the studio musical arrangement would have been slightly more lyrical but it’s not.
Ian
I can heartily second Ian’s response.
The live album is tremendous : the original lp’s 14 tracks have an extra 16 tracks reinserted from Jake’s original show, and it’s Jake’s songs stripped down to just him, his guitar and a laughing audience, not even with a bass player let alone any marimbas (;o). This is early Jake, with the words still fresh in his mind, though not so fresh that he hasn’t already re-written some : and there are the odd few lapses but nothing on the scale of Lobster Pot 2, for example. The introductions are short and one-liney, to compare this 2 CD set of 30 songs to the Lobster Pot 2 CD set of 16, so even if you prefer the full comedic intros you are amply recompensed by nearly twice the material.
I hadn’t heard any of the re-inserted songs before and the versions of Nurse, Mrs Murphy, Caroline Diggeby-Pratte and The Black Swan are splendid, with The Black Swan particularly touching. And if you had any idea of sharing the opinion of one of the original reviewers of the gig in 1971 who suggested that Jake’s guitar playing is “basic”, I would point you at Worried Brown Eyes : no bass, orchestra, piano or other distractions, so you can hear Jake’s breathtakingly delicate, beautiful and stunning jazz chord work. Listen to that and then come back and tell me he was rubbish. If you can.Now to the 4 CD Jake In A Box set. If you have any of the original 4 EMI studio albums on lp (or tape) then the reason for joy is obvious – the tracks are clean and rumble/hiss/scratch free at last, the same as it would be with any other artist’s remastered CD set. Me, I’ve been finding it great to hear a clean recording of Jake’s Progress, an album I’ve only ever had on a really dreadful “Realistic” tape for 20 years but from which I learned and perform Country Girl, Family Tree, On The Shelf, The Hole, Grandad, Mrs. Murphy, and The Castleford Ladies Magic Circle (and didn’t learn Nurse until 15 years later, because the album my mate had taped it off had so many scratches on Nurse it was unrecordable !)
Victor Lewis-Smith, who wrote the box set booklet notes, said it felt like opening Tutankhamun’s tomb when he and his researcher found all the unreleased tracks, and I’ve been getting a lot of fun out of them – it’s almost like buying a new Jake album. As well as the three songs (Famous People, Vicar’s Missus, Family Grave) that Ian feels drawn to, I have found a completely different set of three that stood up in my CD player and said “learn me ! learn me !!” (Freda, The Shepherdess and My Pipe, My Boots And My Lord) and which have given me a big chunk of delight over the last week.
And there are all the curiosities too : Remember Bethlehem and Joseph seem to be arranged for school orchestra and the Mike Samms Singers, Leopold Alcox is nearly western swing, and the intense, doomed pathos of The Black Swan is not diminished in any way by an orchestral arrangement. Bonkers !I returned from holiday to the treasure trove of 6 CDs of material. I concur with a great deal of what has been said by Ian B and Malcy already. Alongside the stunning Famous People (real Brassens territory in sentiment, I reckon), I loved hearing:
1. guitar-only versions of so many songs, especially Jumble Sale, stripped bare and in a state which really lets me appreciate it
2. Jake explaining that he didn’t really know Remember Bethlehem and Joseph because he had written them for children to sing
3. Kirkstall Road girl: a song which is of its time, but certainly one which stands on its own two feet. I love the Jake-only demo, and the skiffle version is so OTT it makes me laugh every time I hear it.Some of the other unreleased songs have clever moments (e.g. Vicar’s Missus), others seem rather weak in comparison with what Jake released (Slowly Our Eyes: much better as Isobel Makes Love…). I do like Thomas Haverley, and the arrangement is fine, although I think it needs to be a shade gentler.
The expanded live album is great and the 16 new tracks stand happily and proudly alongside the 14 originally released: in my book Jake is always best heard with the atmosphere of an audience to accompany him.
No sign of Tonton Georges, alas (wasn’t that in the EMI vault?), but, all in all, EMI has done us proud, as the review in The Guardian suggests.
How long before the And Songs live album makes it out into the shops, I wonder?
Tim Chacksfield at EMI is absolutely adamant that we now have everything that was tucked away in the EMI vaults, Paul. So alas, no Tonton Georges (did anyone ever hear him sing it? – I certainly didn’t, though he did list it as a song he had written). Indeed, the frustrating thing is now the number of songs which we know he did write – and some of which he certainly did sing – and of which no written or recorded sign seems to remain. The Appalling Mr Kinnell, for example, and Fifi Golightly.
We can only hope against hope that someone, somewhere, turns up a long lost live tape of a performance which included one or other of these – or indeed one of a dozen or so more we have titles for.
Ian WPaul wrote:
3. Kirkstall Road girl: a song which is of its time, but certainly one which stands on its own two feet. I love the Jake-only demo, and the skiffle version is so OTT it makes me laugh every time I hear it.
I’m going to have to disagree on this one. The first time I heard Kirkstall Road Girl was at Jake’s Wake in York when a video of him singing it on telly was produced. I didn’t like it then and having listened to it a few times now still don’t like it.
Conceptually and in some respects lyrically it is not that far away from Peter Starstedt’s "Where Do You Go To My Lovely?" but whereas Startstedt’s narrator is in the end generous – albeit grudgingly so – towards the girl who has pretentions but has shaken off her "lowly born tags" (so long as she doesn’t forget where she came from), Jake suggests that she would have been better off if she’d still been working the streets in Leeds. I find something disagreeable in that, a kind of implied suggestion that she should know her place.
Further thoughts re. the Kirkstall Road Girl…
When I first heard the song the the Project website I did not like it particularly and was inclined to dismiss it. However, having heard the two versions on Jake in a Box I have warmed to it for these reasons:
1. music: I like Jake’s guitar playing and the intimate style of the demo on disk 4 and the skiffle version is comically overdone, to my mind.
2. lyrics: there are one or two particularly good lines, e.g. ‘no more grind by the old canal, no more of your backyard bacchanals’.
There are, of course, other songs full of cleverness which are not terribly successful in terms of their overall effect(e.g. Dog)- am I arguing against myself here?
As for Ian’s unease with the overall message, I understand his sense of discomfort, although I am inclined to think that this is mostly tied in with Jake having written a weak, throwaway ending; and in this respect I think that we are in similar territory with Vicar’s Missus and Roly Poly Girl.
Paul wrote:
There are, of course, other songs full of cleverness which are not terribly successful in terms of their overall effect(e.g. Dog)- am I arguing against myself here?
Oddly enough the first thing I thought when I heard Dog again (I don’t play the Easy cd much) was "why haven’t I learned that yet?"
Ian
Post edited by: aliasmacalias, at: 2006/05/01 17:59
Got mine today – both sets, and they’re such a treat. What a fantastic collection! The little book in the box is really good too, with all Victor Lewis-Smith’s comments – what a treasure that man is, as well as our very own Ian Watson! Thank you both, and everyone else involved ;O))))
I suppose "And Songs" was missed out because it’s not EMI – is that right? Pity in a way, that seems to be one album that’s a bit neglected (but at least we’ve got some tracks on the Project CD)- and as has been said before, many times, the best way to hear Jake is live recordings.
Can’t wait to hear those new tracks from the box!
It’s interesting (and frustrating) to note that despite the wonderful CDs released recently, three of Jake’s finest songs are still unavailable: One of Them, The Remembrance and Jake’s masterly The Bull.
. . . despite the wonderful CDs released recently, three of Jake’s finest songs are still unavailable: One of Them, The Remembrance and Jake’s masterly The Bull.
Fortunately, One of Them is available on the Jake Live in Germany CD, available exclusively from the Project on this very site.
The Bull is on the Jake Thackray Collection CD on the HMV Easy label which now appears to be out of print. It is on the JT and Songs LP, as is The Remembrance. So it seems likely that anyone without a gramophone or the original limited edition Project double CD has not heard Jake sing these songs.
I wonder if we should seek a legit way of releasing these online. Logistically it should be easier than producing a CD just for two tracks.
David
. . . despite the wonderful CDs released recently, three of Jake’s finest songs are still unavailable: One of Them, The Remembrance and Jake’s masterly The Bull.
Fortunately, One of Them is available on the Jake Live in Germany CD, available exclusively from the Project on this very site.
The Bull is on the Jake Thackray Collection CD on the HMV Easy label which now appears to be out of print. It is on the JT and Songs LP, as is The Remembrance. So it seems likely that anyone without a gramophone or the original limited edition Project double CD has not heard Jake sing these songs.
I wonder if we should seek a legit way of releasing these online. Logistically it should be easier than producing a CD just for two tracks.
David
There are other possibilities concerning One of Them, The Remembrance and The Bull. There are very fine live performances of all three songs – along with many other goodies by way of intros and stories – on the live, but unreleased, sets from both the Old Red Lion, Birmingham, and the Wharf Theatre, Devizes. The recording quality of the Red Lion set is slightly iffy, but the Devizes recording was done, I believe, by Hospital Radio and is of fine broadcast quality.
The big question mark hangs over the ownership of the rights to these recordings. The Old Red Lion recording is clearly by Jim McPhee, who was rumoured to be very close to death several years ago, but whose fate I haven’t actually established: certainly the Old Red Lion Folk Club, which he abandoned when he fell ill, doesn’t appear to want to know anything about him or his rights.
But who owns the rights to the Hospital Radio recordings? Presumably somebody within the forum must know?
I’m also trying to discover who took over the rights to the Jake Thackray and Songs album when Dingles – presumably – went out of business.
Ian WPosting only for the second time in over a year of membership . . .
I just got the new CDs, shipped over to New York from Amazon as a birthday present to myself. Utterly amazing, manna from heaven after so many years of having Jake so poorly served on CD. (Not to mention that I never did get that elusive vinyl copy of "Jake’s Progress," despite years of searching the bins of every record store on London and getting close on e-bay once.)
Having "Live Peformance" on my CD walkman certainly helped during the long clean-up of leaves and branches that followed a quick visit last weekend from the remnants of Hurricane Ernesto. And it reminds me that a Thackray concert could be a magnificent event, even if it took place before he’d written such classics as "Sister Josephine" and "Jolly Captain," and given us "The Gorilla." (Let alone the apotheosis of the "On Again! On Again!" album.)
It was particularly pleasing to find that so many of the outtakes and unreleased tracks were of such a high quality — very few songs indeed that were markedly below his usual standards, pun intended.
"Jake in a Box" does raise some questions about JT’s recording career, and I’d be very interested to know if anyone has the answers — a quick look through the forum archives hasn’t elucidated me, but I’ll apologize in advance if I’m rehashing old ground. As it were. I’ll put these questions into new threads.
I have one comment and one complaint about the set, however. Putting all the solo recordings from those 1967 Abbey Road sessions onto the same CD made perfect sense. Otherwise, the general chronological order seems, er, logical, although it does force both "Jake’s Progress" and "Bantam Cock" to be split between two CDs. (An alternative approach would have been "Last Will and Testament" and "Jake’s Progress" on CD1, "Bantam Cock" and "On Again! On Again!" on CD2, and all the extras on CD3, but that also has it drawbacks.)
My niggle is that the research, information content, and commentary in the booklet are outstanding and immensely valuable, but they’re let down by several lapses in proofreading. For example, poor Victor Diggeby-Pratte, er, I mean Lewis-Smith is given his hyphen and then deprived of it within four lines of the credits. But more seriously — and in the forlorn hope that you don’t think these are merely the ravings of a terminal pedant — "The Prisoner" is given two different recording dates, and "Little Thomas Haverly" doesn’t get one at all. Since these are stand-alone outtakes, this information matters a little more to devoted Thackrayist. Might have been worth a closer look.
Ah, just minor stuff — a mere gnat’s nibble that in no way detracts from the magnitude of the achievement.
Alan B.
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